"Love,it is a great misfortune,but it is no one's blame--neither ours,nor theirs--they never thought of Guy's loving her.He says so--Edwin himself.""Is it Edwin?"--in a cry as if her heart was breaking."His own brother--his very own brother!Oh,my poor Guy!"Well might the mother mourn!Well might the father look as if years of care had been added to his life that day!For a disaster like this happening in any household--especially a household where love is recognized as a tangible truth,neither to be laughed at,passed carelessly over,nor lectured down--makes the family cease to be a family,in many things,from henceforward.The two strongest feelings of life clash;the bond of brotherly unity,in its perfectness,is broken for ever.
For some minutes we sat,bewildered as it were,thinking of the tale as if it had been told of some other family than ours.Mechanically the mother raised her eyes;the first object they chanced to meet was a rude water-colour drawing,kept,coarse daub as it was,because it was the only reminder we had of what never could be recalled--one red-cheeked child with a hoop,staring at another red-cheeked child with a nosegay--supposed to represent little Edwin and little Guy.
"Guy taught Edwin to walk.Edwin made Guy learn his letters.How fond they were of one another--those two boys.Now--brother will be set against brother!They will never feel like brothers--never again.""Love--"
"Don't,John!don't speak to me just yet.It is so terrible to think of.Both my boys--both my two noble boys!to be made miserable for that girl's sake.Oh!that she had never darkened our doors.Oh!that she had never been born."
"Nay,you must not speak thus.Remember--Edwin loves her--she will be Edwin's wife.""Never!"cried the mother,desperately;"I will not allow it.Guy is the eldest.His brother has acted meanly.So has she.No,John,Iwill NOT allow it."
"You will not allow what has already happened--what Providence has permitted to happen?Ursula,you forget--they love one another."This one fact--this solemn upholding of the pre-eminent right and law of love,--which law John believed in,they both believed in,so sacredly and firmly--appeared to force itself upon Mrs.Halifax's mind.Her passion subsided.
"I cannot judge clearly.You can--always.Husband,help me!""Poor wife!--poor mother!"he muttered,caressing her,and in that caress himself all but giving way--"Alas!that I should have brought thee into such a sea of trouble."Perhaps he referred to the circumstance of his bringing Miss Silver into our house;perhaps to his own blindness,or want of parental caution,in throwing the young people continually together.However,John was not one to lament over things inevitable;or by overweening blame of his own want of foresight,to imply a doubt of the foreseeing of Providence.
"Love,"he said,"I fear we have been too anxious to play Deus ex machina with our children,forgetting in whose Hands are marrying and giving in marriage--life's crosses and life's crowns.Trouble has come when we looked not for it.We can but try to see the right course,and seeing it,to act upon it."Ursula assented--with a bursting heart it seemed--but still she assented,believing,even as in her young days,that her husband's will was wisest,best.